Maxime Meiland does want to sell her abuse story for 23 euros per book, but denounces the consequences that entails. “It is unwise,” says Natacha Harlequin.
Maxime Meiland’s claim that she was raped by a peer at the age of 15 is not exactly accepted by everyone. Many people doubt her integrity and point out that the reality star had never reported it until recently, but did make money from it by publishing a book about it.
Unwise
According to criminal lawyer Natacha Harlequin, it is really not useful to first accuse someone in a book and only file a report much later, when your credibility is at stake. When colleague Dyantha Brooks joins her Show news asks what she thinks, she answers: “Honestly, Dyanth? Unwise.”
Maxime chose the wrong order, Natacha thinks. “If you say: ‘I was raped’, and someone wants to write a book with you, the first thing I would have said to you (…): ‘Gosh, child, this is so intense, maybe you should get a lawyer speak.’ In fact, ‘Maybe we should do that before we release that book.’”
Fantastic story
Natacha thinks that Maxime might not have noticed that. “Look, Maxime might not know all this, right? Let’s assume that for a moment.”
Colleague Bart Ettekoven: “Yes, but that biographer (Jan Dijkgraaf, ed.) of course thought he had a fantastic story for this book, so as a writer this is of course a kind of, yes… Nice story, no matter how nice it sounds.”
Natacha: “Yes, but a journalistic starting point is a different interest than thorough criminal proceedings. They started that now after that book. Then I think: yes, is that still possible?”
Not recommended
Patty Brard, who is in the Maxime camp, then said: “Yes, but on the other hand, I also think… Objectively, we would have advised her not to write that down, but on the other hand, it is also true: now it is written down and now it turns out quite some time later that this boy stood up and demanded a sum of money from her.”
That boy wants to take a big bite out of Maxime’s royalties because of the damage suffered, but she resists this and after he filed a complaint of libel and slander, she still reported rape. Patty: “Can Maxime also file a complaint of libel and slander against this report from that man?”
What does John think?
That is possible, says Natacha: “But I hope that at some point there will be a lawyer who will say: we are just going to fight everything out at the hearing. I would think that would be very sensible.”
Finally: what does John van den Heuvel think of it? “In retrospect, it would have been better for her to take the opposite route: first file a report and then possibly write something about it in a book,” he says in RTL Boulevard. “You can never accuse someone of criminal behavior in a book without being able to substantiate it. That will make it difficult.”